


Play Fight

by Twyd



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms
Genre: Biting, Bullying, Childhood, Fights, Flirting, Friendship, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Orphanage, Orphans, Pre-Slash, Slash, Tickling, Wammy House, Wammy's Era, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 13:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11037120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: Slash, Wammy's era. "He gets in a fight with B in the back yard, and wins."





	Play Fight

He gets in a fight with B in the back yard, and wins. His first fight.

He’s sick of B’s taunts, sick of every kid in every home he’s been in. He knows he’s different, knows he aggravates kids and grown ups alike, but he doesn’t mean to. Most days he doesn’t even speak. He just wants to be left alone. But there is always one like B who has to push and push him until he can take no more.

Beyond’s eyes had been lidded, his grin lazy, when he had pinned L. No-one was goading him on, but unlike the others, BB didn’t seem to need an audience.

And L had had enough. He spat in Beyond’s face, and went for him while he was still in shock. L keeps hitting him until the others begin to chant, and Roger has to pull him off. The old man slaps him and sends him to his room with no supper. Not that he cares. He doesn’t want them to see him crying.

Wammy is kinder than Roger. He holds a damp cloth to L's face where Roger slapped him. But, he still forces L to apologise.

“I will not have violence in this home, no matter how badly you were provoked.”

“It was my fault,” Beyond says, indistinct through his bloody nose.

“Quiet, B.” Wammy is still looking at L. “Well?”

“Sorry.” He doesn’t look at B as he says it. He is not sorry.

Wammy sends him to bed with no supper.

 

* * *

 

B comes into his room in the night. He has L pinned before he’s even fully awake.

“Spit on me again and I’ll spit right back.”

L goes limp beneath him. “You started it,” he mumbles. The salvage of children everywhere.

“I know.” B releases his wrists, but stays on top of him. “I brought you a peace offering.”

He pushes what feels like a chocolate bar into L’s hand. L pulls at the foil blindly, and the smell almost makes him delirious. It _is_ chocolate.

“I haven’t done anything to it,” B tells him, when L hesitates. He takes a bite to prove it.

L takes a cautious bite of his own. “Why?”

“I think you mean, ‘thank you’.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He gives L a little kiss on the forehead before he can dodge, and then he is gone. If it weren't for the wrapper still curled in his chocolate smudged fingers, L would think it had all been a dream.

* * *

 

When L wakes up, there is a book on the end of his bed. Oscar Wilde. He knows at once who it is from, and he doesn’t want it. He tells himself he doesn’t need friends, especially one as vicious and unpredictable as B.

Except he _does_ need a friend, almost as badly as he needs better books. He strokes the cover longingly.

He goes out into the corridor with it and hovers, blending in with the others, until he sees B saunter out of his room and down the stairs. Then he dives into the other boy's room and drops the book on B’s bed.The bookcase catches his eye as he's about to go, and he stares at them all longingly.Theft had never looked so tempting.

“Don’t you like Wilde?”

L jumps, and whirls around.

B is leaning in the doorway watching him.

“I don’t want any books,” he lies.

“Just chocolate?”

“I don’t want anything.”

B smiles like he’s said something cute. “Perhaps you’re too immature for Wilde. Why don't you pick another one?”

“No thanks.” His teeth grit. B still hasn’t moved from the doorway. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then move,”

B smiles. He comes into the room properly and closes the door behind him.

L takes a wary step back. “Leave me alone, B.”

“Why are you so convinced I’ll hurt you? I want to be friends. Do you think I hand out my books to just anyone?”

L takes another step back, and the bed presses into his legs. “Why would you want to be friends?”

“Because,” he says, smiling still. “I misjudged you. You’re cute, you're fun, and you fight like a fucking snake.”

L doesn’t know what to do with this. He can’t back away any further.

“I told the other kids to leave you alone.” B’s eyes turn serious.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

B steps closer, and L very nearly overbalances.

“I don’t want to owe you anything," he says quickly.

“I never said you did.”

B jumps on him without warning, knocking him back, and the mattress springs with their weight. Before he can react, B sinks his teeth in somewhere below L’s collarbone, and he doesn’t let go.

L’s skin and eyes burn as he squirms, biting his lip with the effort of not crying out. There is nothing worse than being rescued.

B finally loosens his teeth into more of a suck, still holding on to L’s wrists. L can feel how hard he is, realises at some point, he has gotten hard too. B licks the bite a few times before pulling back.

He looks pleased. He doesn’t seem at all embarrassed about their hard ons.

“You didn’t even whimper.” He kisses away L’s tears before they fall.

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe next time.”

L gives him a half-hearted kick. “Can I go now?”

B kisses his eyes again, and sucks gently on the forming bruise. L realises it is his pulse point B has bit. He can feel it throbbing in B’s mouth.

* * *

 

The following morning, L stays out all day, sneaking out before even Wammy is awake, as he is technically supposed to be grounded. He snaffles some food from the kitchen that he thinks no-one will miss, and heads for the woods.

He comes back sunburnt, with leaves in his hair and mud on his knees, and although they all laugh at him, no-one scratches his sunburn. Perhaps B had meant what he said.

Roger is furious, Wammy disappointed, and they send L to his room in disgrace.

B follows to laugh at him all over again.

“Go away,” L draws his legs up on the bed, cringing when it burns.

“Don’t be like that,” B says. “I brought you this.”

He holds out a bottle of after-sun care.

L reaches for it timidly, and B holds it just out of reach.

“I’ll let you have some if you let me put it on you.”

L’s hand wavers. He’s still sore and sleepy from the sun.

B takes that as a yes. He smiles and squirts some lotion on his hands, and rubs it into L’s shoulders and neck.

“Your face isn’t too bad,” he tells him, dabbing his nose. “Been in a book all day?”

“Hmm.”

He lets B do his legs.

“We had ice cream at lunch,” he says, to L’s dismay. “You should sneak down and get some later. Where did you go, the woods?”

“Just around.”

He’d gone to the woods. He’d drank from the stream and shared his crusts with the ducks.

B hums in approval. He is massaging L’s feet now, and it feels so good that L is letting him.

“Your feet are filthy.”

“Then don’t touch them.”

“I don’t mind.” He tickles the foot he’s holding, and L’s whole body jerks.

“Don’t.”

“You’re ticklish?”

“Don’t, B.”

“OK, some other time." He grips L's ankle so he can’t pull away. “You look like you could do with a laugh.”

“Why are you doing this?”

B’s smile fades. “You still think I’m out to get you?”

He bends and kisses the arch of L’s foot.

L shivers and jerks it away.

“I don’t like you.”

“I know.” B sits up, solemn now. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you. I wish I could take it all back.”

“You _bit_ me.”

B grins at him. “Ah, I don’t think I’m sorry for that. Didn’t you like it?”

He resumes massaging L’s feet without waiting for an answer.

* * *

 

L is now not only under house arrest, but forbidden all sweets and treats for a month. He goes into the garden, but that’s about the limit of his freedom. He longs for days when it rains and they all have to stay home, even though no-one talks to him, because it makes the house feel less lonely.

B smiles with sympathy whenever he sees him. He sometimes sneaks L a cake or biscuit, and L doesn’t have the pride to refuse.

One afternoon, going out of his mind with boredom, he even musters the courage to knock on B’s door and asks to borrow a book.

B gestures to them without getting up. “Help yourself.”

It takes him a while – B has so many books, and they all cry out to L the way sweets do – but B doesn’t seem to mind.

“You really don’t want any friends?”

L turns back warily to look at him. He's lounging on his bed with a book of his own, watching L lazily.

 “You don’t want to be friends, you want to fool around.”

B’s grin shows his teeth. “Can’t I have both?” He shakes his head when L just looks nervous. “I’m only joking. Go get your book.”

When he's finally picked one, he turns to face B again warily. He suddenly doesn’t want to be alone. But, he has no idea how to make conversation, how to be with other children. He has done nothing with B so far but wrestle and be given a massage, and he didn't enjoy either of those experiences.

B senses his gaze and looks up, raising his eyebrows.

“You can sit here for a bit if you want.”

He shoves a jumper and some other junk off the bed, making room for L at his side.

“Thanks.”

It takes L a moment to be able to concentrate on the book, not used to having someone so close to him, but after a few pages he is absorbed.

His eyes begin to droop as he reads for so long, almost forgetting where he is, and when he wakes up, there is a blanket over him and the room is in pitch darkness.

“I put a pillow under your quilt,” B whispers. “Wammy didn’t check.”

“Oh.”

The book is still folded over his thumb. He puts it aside carefully. Then he lies there fidgeting, unsure whether to stay or not. B makes the decision for him.

“Relax, Lawli.”

L stiffens.

“What did you call me?”

“Lawliet. Don’t worry.” He grabs L’s elbow when he tries to get up. “I know everyone’s names. I won’t tell anyone.”

There is something about the way he says this that makes L believe him. Slowly, he lies back down.

Beyond kisses him as unexpectedly as the way he does everything. He pulls away before L even figures out what’s happening.

"You're not on your own, you know." B finds his hand in the dark and gives it a little squeeze. “Goodnight, Lawliet.”


End file.
